Entries in Merch
(16)

Promoting a band is tricky business these days. Tools and tricks that worked wonders even five years ago don’t work nearly as well today. In case you haven’t noticed, the music industry has undergone a complete transformation in the span of just a couple of years.

Where listeners used to rely on full-length albums for their music, they’re now flocking to playlists. This means that to get the most out of promoting your band, you’ll have to approach things a little differently. Here are eight ideas to help you get started:

Fan engagement and direct-to-fan are hot topics these days because it’s finally come to light that fans are the real gatekeepers in the music business. And by now we should also know that merchandise is one of the surefire ways that artists can make solid money today. Like most other revenue streams for artists, being successful at your merch biz is highly dependent on your fans. The good news is that in addition to being a cash generator, your merch can actually be used as a fan engagement tool. When you’re using your merch to engage your fans, they’ll feel connected to you. When they feel connected and as if they are part of your journey, they will be likely to buy more. So how exactly can you use merch to engage your fans? Here are five ways:

Nope, I’m not talking about covering Green Day, nor am I talking about terrible nausea that turns you green and—you know what happens next. I know you know what I’m talking about. It can be incredibly hard for a band to prioritize environmentally-friendly band life. You have to think about getting along with each other, actually putting out good music, booking your next gig, and staying sane. No small task. But still, if you’re in this for the long haul, you don’t want to be that band: the one showing no consideration for anything but your oh-so-basic band activities. Your band will feel a whole lot better if you do something besides care about yourselves.

Often times, people look at their band/music project as an endless money pit. They view it as impossible to break even. However, I’d argue that over time, breaking even is pretty attainable. A lot of young bands don’t pay enough attention to money - they give up early and view their losses as necessary evils for the sake of “the game,” so to speak. And they also give way too much away for free. That’s fine if free merch is your thing and you’re not concerned with breaking even (in fact, I think that’s noble of you). But if the reason you’re doing that is due to an idea that success comes only from terrible losses, I think you’re wrong. You can start making money now, and it’ll probably help you to continue your music henceforth.

Don’t get stuck with a bunch of burned disks you can’t sell. The more options you have for getting rid of merch, the more likely you are to sell stuff. Here are some easy options to help you sell merch like a boss.

The Beatles got a lot right. After all, you don’t become the most famous and beloved band in music history if you’re constantly effing up right and left. But they were also pioneers, close pals, big personalities, prolific talents, and – perhaps most surprising of all – only human, which means they made some mistakes along the way. Luckily, you don’t have to do the same with your band. Here are six lessons to learn from when John, Paul, George, and Ringo screwed up big time.

There are two ways that musicians have always made money. One is by performing and the other is by selling merchandise (“merch”). With the continued decline in music sales (except vinyl), and the increasing popularity of music consumption through streaming platforms like Spotify, artists are yet again forced to lean more heavily on other income sources in order to make a living doing what they love. Touring and live shows continue to be a primary revenue stream for artists, and most artists sell 85% or more of their merch directly at live shows at the merch table. With that, merch can be a lucrative source of income to artists if they play it right. While many artists know that selling merch is a good way to keep the hypothetical lights on in their business of being an artist, we’re still seeing some common mistakes being made out there across all levels. Let’s zone in on 5 of these and see if we might make more sense of this merch madness.

You know the adage, “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket“. Musicians just can’t afford to do that anymore. There are just so many baskets and each one has its benefits. Some baskets will be more important to you, and some will be more important during specific times in your career.

Think of the below list as a bunch of baskets related to making money from your live performance, and determine which ones you want to use. Some of these will be no-brainers, but they’re still on the list as a reminder.

Last month, in Part One, we established that the only money in the music business right now is in performing your own songs and owning your own publishing and merch. We looked at the eleven things an aspiring singer/songwriter needed to do in order to be able to take the next step into learning how to become an entertainer and communicate and connect with an audience. Part One involved a lot of hard work and long, boring hours of practice and re-writes with little to no payoff. Now it gets interesting, although there’s still plenty of hard work ahead. Part Two assumes that the artist has completed all the steps in Part One.

It’s a pretty well-known fact that touring is incredibly expensive. Even if your entire band sleeps in the van every night and survives on a diet of nuts and Top Ramen (not recommended), the cost of gas alone can be completely debilitating. And that’s only if everything goes smoothly – there are always emergencies that can come up, such as van breakdowns, gear malfunctions, or medical emergencies. All of these problems will require money to solve.

These days, merchandise sales make up a pretty big portion of most touring acts’ income. The staples of CD’s, shirts, and stickers have become even more important as income from performing has gradually dropped. There are many tips out there of what bands should order and how they should sell their products, but there doesn’t seem to be much on how to get the best possible pricing from vendors, how to calculate prices, or how much product should be ordered before a tour.

Why the Value of Your Merch Changes Every Day

Let’s say you just started a hot-sauce business. The price of your product probably changes depending on the buyer; lower-end grocery stores, shi-shi markets, restaurants, and direct customers on your website will all pay a little something different for the same mouth-burning sensations— to say nothing of the folks who will try free samples at the store.

Musical products aren’t that different; the value of your merch changes from gig to gig, and should (or could) be priced accordingly. This is NOT “Name-Your-Price,” but an alternate system where the band and manager keep the context of the concert in mind when setting today’s “market price.” And unlike fish, your music won’t grow stale,… right?